The Alpha Who Burned My Pack Is the Love of My Life

Kael's soldiers found us near noon.

They carried Fallon back to the fortress on a litter.

They dragged me to the temple in chains.

Alpha Kael waited beneath the obsidian statue of the Wolf God.

No healer had examined me. No one had asked whether the wolfsbane bolt grazed my cloak or whether I had eaten since dawn the previous day. The contrast was deliberate: Fallon had returned as an injured heir. I had returned as a suspect.

"Convenient ambush," he said. "The rebels knew the exact trail my son would take."

"I was beside him when they fired."

"An excellent way to look innocent."

He grabbed the front of my dress and hauled me partly off my feet.

"Where are the Serpent rebels hiding?"

"If I knew, I would have asked them to aim at you instead."

Kael raised his fist.

The temple doors slammed open.

Fallon entered with fresh bandages strapped across his shoulder. He was pale, unsteady, and furious.

"Put her down."

Kael did not move. "She led them to you."

"No."

"You cannot know that."

"I know where the first bolt was aimed. Her heart. If she planned the attack, she chose assassins who nearly killed her."

Kael's grip loosened.

Fallon stepped between us.

"Touch her again without evidence and we have a different problem."

"You threaten your Alpha over a Crescent woman?"

"I am telling my father not to break the treaty he ordered me to seal."

For several seconds, neither moved.

Then Kael laughed.

"Keep your pet close, son. When she puts a knife in your back, remember this conversation."

He left.

Fallon waited until the doors were fully shut, then turned on the temple guards. "Remove the chains."

One hesitated. "Alpha Kael ordered—"

"I heard his order. Remove them."

The guard unlocked my wrists. Red marks circled the skin. Fallon looked at them, jaw tight.

"Why does your father want me guilty so badly?" I asked.

"Because if the Serpent rebels have help inside the fortress, he would rather blame an enemy bride than admit one of his own people betrayed him."

"And what would you rather do?"

"Find the person who fired a silver bullet at my back."

Fallon remained facing the doors until the last guard disappeared.

"I did not ask for your help," I said.

"You never do."

"Because help from you always comes with a lock."

He turned. "Return to the east tower."

"There it is."

His expression hardened. "I am injured, tired, and not in the mood to argue."

"Then stop giving orders."

"Go."

That evening, Fallon's war council met in the central keep.

I waited until the guard rotation changed.

Selene's warning had given me a question. The ambush had given me urgency.

What were Fallon and Kael both hiding about the Moon Festival?

The answer, if it existed, would be in Fallon's study.

I waited another ten minutes after the council bells rang, listening from my tower door. One guard complained about the cold. The other mentioned Fallon had ordered the west gallery cleared for military maps. That confirmed he would be occupied. I had one narrow window, and failure would hand Kael the treason charge he already wanted.

I used a bent stable nail to work the old brass lock.

It took six minutes and one broken fingernail.

The door opened.

I slipped inside.

His study surprised me.

No trophies. No portraits of Kael. No wall of weapons.

Books.

Maps.

Shelves of Crescent histories copied from manuscripts I recognized from our own archives.

Some volumes should not have existed here at all. The original copies had burned in the sanctuary library. These were handwritten transcriptions, dated months before the attack. Fallon had been collecting Crescent records before the war openly began. That could mean preparation for conquest. It could also mean he had known far more about our pack than Kael ever admitted.

I pulled one volume free.

The margins were full of Fallon's handwriting.

Not insults.

Questions.

Why did Crescent close the north pass before Kael's declaration of war?

Who warned Elian about the troop movement?

Why was the Moon Sanctuary burned before the main army arrived?

Beneath that question, he had written a name twice. Garran Voss, Kael's former war master. Executed for insubordination two weeks after the Crescent campaign.

I knew that name. Not from history. From the edge of a memory: a man shouting near the sanctuary gate while Fallon held me behind a stone pillar.

My hands began to shake.

My breathing changed.

He had been investigating the same night I could not remember.

I searched the desk.

Trade ledgers. Patrol reports. Sealed letters.

The bottom drawer was locked separately.

I used the nail again.

The mechanism clicked.

Inside, on dark velvet, lay a single silver amulet attached to a broken chain.

My amulet.

Dried blood crusted the crescent engraving.

I reached for it.

The instant my fingers touched the silver, memory tore through me.

Moon Festival.

Fallon in the woods.

His hands on my face.

"If they find out, my father will use you to get to me."

My own voice, shaking. "Then reject me."

"I can't."

His teeth at my throat.

The mark burning into place.

Then another image.

Sanctuary doors breaking open.

Elian on his knees.

Blood on the stones.

Fallon standing over him with a sword in his hand.

My brother falling.

But the image jumped before the blade struck. I saw Fallon's mouth moving. I saw Elian turn his head. I saw another shadow behind them. The spell had left the memory jagged, and grief had filled the missing pieces with certainty.

I hated uncertainty more than I hated pain.

I dropped to my knees.

The amulet cut into my palm.

He knew.

He had always known.

The doorknob turned behind me.

I froze.

The study door opened.

Fallon stepped inside.

His gaze dropped to the unlocked drawer, then to the bloodstained amulet clenched in my fist.

Neither of us spoke.

For the first time since I entered Obsidian territory, Fallon looked afraid of me.